DES-2T13 Specialist – Cloud Architect, Cloud Infrastructure Exam

Overview

This exam is a qualifying exam for the Specialist - Cloud Architect, Cloud Infrastructure (DECS-CA) track. This exam focuses on knowledge and skills to successfully design a cloud infrastructure that supports multiple types of services. It tests the ability of data center technology professionals to design robust cloud based infrastructure incorporating components such as cloud management, consumer resources, elasticity, metering, hybrid capabilities, and disaster recovery. Dell EMC provides free practice tests to assess your knowledge in preparation for the exam. Practice tests allow you to become familiar with the topics and question types you will find on the proctored exam. Your results on a practice test offer one indication of how prepared you are for the proctored exam and can highlight topics on which you need to study and train further. A passing score on the practice test

does not guarantee a passing score on the certification exam.

Exam Topics

Topics likely to be covered on this exam include:

Introduction to Cloud Design and Design Parameters (10%)

• Describe digital business imperatives, cloud concepts, cloud

  infrastructure design approaches and goals

• Describe cloud solutions design project lifecycle phases

• Describe cloud reference architecture and various cloud design considerations for compute, storage,     network, CMP, hybrid and multicloud, and application platform and PaaS solution

Data Collection and Analysis (12%)

• Describe data collection process, metrics, and tools

• Describe analysis process, business value analysis, and design best practices

Architecting a Do-It-Yourself Solution (25%)

• Explain the benefits, challenges, and considerations for designing various compute technologies in      a cloud infrastructure

• Explain the benefits, challenges, and considerations for designing various network technologies in      a cloud infrastructure

• Explain the benefits, challenges, and considerations for designing various storage technologies in a cloud infrastructure

Architecting a CI / HCI Solution (18%)

• Explain design decisions and considerations for converged infrastructure

• Explain design decisions and considerations for hyper-converged and cloud in a box infrastructure

Cloud Management Platform (10%)

• Describe the key functions of a CMP, CMP reference architecture, and CMP infrastructure

• Describe the key requirements and considerations for designing CMP solutions

Hybrid Cloud and Multi Cloud (15%)

• Describe the design considerations for hybrid cloud and multicloud

• Explain disaster recovery considerations

Application Development and Deployment Platform (10%)

• Describe the application development and deployment environment and its requirements

• Explain the design considerations of Do-It-Yourself and Packaged PaaS solutions

The percentages after each topic above reflects the approximate distribution of the

total question set across the exam.

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Dell EMC Gains High Performance Computing Momentum and Expands Portfolio

Dell EMC is announcing momentum in high performance computing (HPC) deployments and new portfolio expansions, designed to help accelerate time to insights in a variety of disciplines, including artificial intelligence, bioscience, weather forecasting and more. Dell EMC also announces that the University of Florida’s Center of Space, High Performance, Reconfigurable Computing (SHREC) has won the 2018 Dell EMC AI Challenge.

“Advances in IT are making HPC systems increasingly more powerful and innovative to accelerate the time necessary to reach new discoveries, but many still believe implementations can be complex,” said Thierry Pellegrino, vice president and general manager of HPC at Dell EMC. “Based on decades of experience with leading institutions, technology partners and strategic customers, Dell EMC provides an extensive portfolio of technologies that simplify HPC adoption to advance research and further democratize HPC. We remain focused on leading the way in HPC innovation and helping organizations of all types and sizes further advance expanding opportunities in artificial intelligence and machine learning.”

Dell EMC fueling research for human progress

Dell EMC continues to be at the forefront of helping customers adopt the latest HPC technologies to fuel a wide range of discoveries and research. Recent customer momentum demonstrates Dell EMC’s commitment to deliver world-class HPC systems that bring together the latest advances in servers, accelerators, liquid cooling and networking:

Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas at Austin has selected Dell EMC to develop and deliver its new Frontera supercomputer in 2019, funded by TACC’s $60 million award from The National Science Foundation. At the time of its announcement, in August 2018, Frontera would have been the world’s fifth most powerful system, the third fastest in the U.S. and the largest at any university if completed. The Dell EMC PowerEdge system plans to combine several technical innovations such as CoolIT Systems high-density Direct Contact Liquid Cooling, high performance Mellanox HDR 200Gb/s InfiniBand interconnect and next generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. Frontera’s early projects are expecting to include analysis of particle collisions from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, global climate modeling, hurricane forecasting and multi-messenger astronomy.

• The University of Cambridge has expanded its supercomputing capabilities with its “Cumulus - UK Science Cloud.” This new OpenStack system is the UK’s largest academic supercomputer, providing more than two petaflops of performance, powered by Dell EMC PowerEdge servers, Intel® Xeon® processors and Intel® Omni-Path Architecture. To help solve the UK’s most challenging data driven, simulation and AI tasks, Cumulus is open to all UK academics and industry and delivered in partnership with Dell EMC and StackHPC, a UK start-up specialising in the convergence of HPC and Cloud. It is funded with investments totalling over £13 million from STFC (DiRAC/IRIS), EPSRC (Tier 2) and the university.
• Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas at Austin has selected Dell EMC to develop and deliver its new Frontera supercomputer in 2019, funded by TACC’s $60 million award from The National Science Foundation. At the time of its announcement, in August 2018, Frontera would have been the world’s fifth most powerful system, the third fastest in the U.S. and the largest at any university if completed. The Dell EMC PowerEdge system plans to combine several technical innovations such as CoolIT Systems high-density Direct Contact Liquid Cooling, high performance Mellanox HDR 200Gb/s InfiniBand interconnect and next generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. Frontera’s early projects are expecting to include analysis of particle collisions from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, global climate modeling, hurricane forecasting and multi-messenger astronomy.
• The Ohio Supercomputer Center is deploying its Pitzer Cluster, delivered by Dell EMC. Like TACC’s Frontera system, the Pitzer Cluster will utilize Dell EMC PowerEdge servers with CoolIT’s modular, rack-based Direct Contact Liquid Cooling solution, which allows for increased rack densities, higher component performance potential and better energy efficiency. As a result, it will offer nearly as much performance as the center’s most powerful cluster but require less power and less than half the space. The system will power broad research areas from human genomics to the global spread of viruses.